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Two people have been killed and others seriously injured in two automobile crashes south of Tucson within the past week. Both tragedies remind us that decisions made while driving — or decisions families make on behalf of loved ones — have serious consequences.

Last Thursday Donnie A. Perry, 70, of Colorado was driving his Ford F-150 north on Interstate 19 when he pulled over and stopped on the right side of the highway, according to a Department of Public Safety spokeswoman. Instead of pulling back into the northbound flow of traffic, the driver made a U-turn and drove south into oncoming traffic.

Still traveling the wrong way on the interstate, the driver crashed head-on into a Volkswagen Jetta just north of Duval Mine Road.

The Volkswagen driver, Don Carlos Nolette, 38, and his 9-year-old daughter were thrown from their car. The father was killed and the child was airlifted to University Medical Center, according to a Star story by Dale Quinn.

Two days later, a 16-year-old Sahuarita boy was killed and two other teens were injured in a collision on the frontage road along Interstate 19, also near Duval Mine Road.

In this wreck, too, a car and a Ford F250 4x4 crew cab pickup collided. Daniel Edward Figueroa Jr., a 16-year-old passenger in the car, was killed. The car's driver was injured and taken to a Tucson hospital. A 15-year-old girl riding in the pickup was taken to the hospital by helicopter.

Counting how many things had to go wrong for these tragedies to unfold won't bring Nolette or Figueroa back, nor will it lessen the injuries to the others.

The painful, broader lessons of these crashes must not go unobserved: Wear your seatbelt. It doesn't get plainer than that.

Nolette, his daughter and passengers in the truck in the second accident weren't wearing seatbelts. These crashes illustrate in cold detail why seatbelts matter. Maybe they could have helped save lives or lessen injuries.

We don't know how or why Perry made the decision to make a U-turn on the highway and drive the wrong way into oncoming traffic. But any time an older driver is involved in a crash of this magnitude, the issue of age and diminished driving ability surfaces. No age group is immune to traffic accidents, but there is no getting around the fact that there are people driving who should not be.

Oftentimes, family members or friends know it. But because a driver's license means freedom and losing wheels marks the end of independence, many well-intended friends and family members avoid the issue or rationalize the decision to allow someone to keep driving by reasoning that the person really doesn't drive that far, so it's OK.

It's not OK.

The same holds true for young drivers. Driving is a priviledge not a right and parents are under no obligation to make sure their teens have cars. Unsafe drivers — whether because of inexperience, slowing reflexes, fatigue or outright carelessness — are a hazard to everyone on the road.

Conversations about driving ability aren't easy. No one wants to hear that their reflexes aren't sharp enough or they're making bad decisions behind the wheel.

But if you know someone who, in your heart, shouldn't be driving, take action and do something about it.

AARP offers a driver-safety program for people 50 and older. It's a way to tune up driving skills, learn about normal age-related physical changes and how to adjust your driving to allow for these changes, according to the organization's Web site. Find out more at www.aarp.org/families/driver_safety/ or call the Tucson AARP information office at 571-9884.